EZ Gardening For Beginners

Antique roses are among some of the loveliest flowers to grace many gardens. If you are an avid gardener, at some point in your life among the soil and seeds, you will probably want to try your hand at antique roses. Many gardeners find themselves intimidated by antique roses. This is probably because of the general splendor of these flowers, which makes it difficult o believe that these ruffled beauties are anything but easy to plant. But that is not often the case. Antique roses can be easier to plant and care for than you might think, but that does not mean that they are effortless. However, most gardeners agree that any effort that results in a display of thriving antique roses is well worth it. Here are some tips that can make it easier to care for antique roses.

Choosing the Best Planting Location for Your Antique Roses

Establishing a nice, healthy show of antique roses has a lot to do with the location you choose to place them. Here are some tips to preparing the rose bed. Many antique roses will grow in even poor soil locations, but if you want your garden to thrive, choose a location with well-drained and rich soil. Choose an open area that you know receives at least six hours of direct sun. Morning sun is always preferable. Make sure that the area gets a good amount of air circulation, as this will help prevent disease. Take the time to establish a good bed by practicing good soil preparation. If your soil is too sandy or too heavy, add a good amount of organic material to help enrich or break it up, depending on its condition. Ideally, you will want to prepare the soil bed a few months in advance so that the soil has enough time to absorb the new nutrients. Remember that you want to establish your antique roses in the healthiest soil possible. With this in mind, prepare your rose bed in spring or summer in preparation for a fall or winter planting.

Planting Your Antique Roses

Once your rose bed has been adequately prepared, you are ready to start planting your antique roses. Visit your local nursery in fall or winter for the best selection of antique roses. Remember that any roses you buy in a container will need to be planted using a high quality potting soil, and may require additional fertilizer and water. To remove the rose plant from the plastic planter, simply knock the plant out of the container gently and place it into the prepared planting hole. Do not worry about spreading the roots. Simply cover the plant with soil and water thoroughly.

Follow these Mulching and Watering Guidelines for the Best Results

What are the keys to taking good care of your antique roses? They are simple enough: mulch and water your plants with careful attention. This does not have to be difficult work. As for mulch, add a thick layer of mulch to your antique roses at least two or three times a year. That is all it takes to ensure less water stress, less weed growth, less heat stress and overall richer soil and happier plants. Mulching can be as simple as adding decomposed pine bark, leaf litter, pine needles or store-bought mulch. However, do the earth a favor and use mulch that you can find around the yard. As for watering, give your antique roses a good soaking every 7 to 10 days. Although they make look exquisitely delicate, many antique roses actually tend to be drought tolerant. Still, avoid light frequent watering, as this makes the plant more vulnerable to disease, and will encourage surface root growth. Deep, infrequent watering will help your plant become hardier and will lessen the risk for disease and evaporation.

Herbs are a great addition for every house and for every cook. Fresh herbs are fragrant, tasty and healthy. Fresh herbs hold many more essential nutrients than many vegetables and are also easy to grow. If you think that you might not have the time to grow herbs, think again.

The most commonly used herbs in cooking are also easy to grow. You can just plant them in a container, keep them in a sunny and warm spot and water them regularly and you will end up with fragrant lush green herbs. Growing herbs can be as easy as one-two-three and there are also a variety of easy set up kits that makes it even possible for busy people to grow herbs.

There are herbs that can be planted and used for cooking or just as an ornament by everybody. These herbs include parsley, chives, rosemary, basil, dill, thymes, lavender and sweet marjoram.

Many recipes call for these herbs and once they reach there full grown height you can harvest and prune these herbs all season long.

All of these herbs can be sprouted from seeds in either the pot you want to grow them in or in special peat pellets and starter soil. Garden centers also sell little plastic greenhouses to make your seed sprout faster and guarantee a young plant within a certain amount of time, as long as you water the seeds regularly. When planning on planting any of these eight herbs into containers, make sure that you use good soil. Besides a good soil, regular water and some feed here and there these herbs are very easy to grow and do not need much maintenance and are therefore perfect herbs even for busy people to grow.

These herbs can also be bought with a growing kit. The kit will generally hold everything you need to start the seeds and sprout the plants. This kit usually includes a small plastic greenhouse like container, peat pellets, the seeds for the different herbs included in the package as well as step-by-step directions. To follow the directions and grew herbs with these kits is so easy, that even your children can succeed.

Just as easy as the herb seed kit to grow is the garden in a bag. Gardens in a bag have everything you need already in the bag and the bag can be used as a container for the plants. The bag will have a soil and fertilizer mixture as well as the seeds already in the soil. Just add water and within a short amount of time your herbs will start growing. The herbs than can be kept in the bag and there is not need for buying pots or other containers to grow the herbs. These bags can sit on the counter or hung from certain spots almost like a hanging garden or basket.

If you do not have the time to wait for the seeds to sprout and the plants to grow, there is always the possibility for busy people to buy the fully grown plant at your local garden center. Even supermarkets nowadays offer certain herbs such as Parsley, Chives and basil as a fresh plant in their fresh produce section. Recently there actually appeared a hydroponics version of basil on the market that can be grown in water and does not need to be transferred into soil for weeks.

Therefore, it does not matter how busy you are, you should be able to grow one or more of these eight easy to grow herbs in containers for your everyday joy and cooking.

Even if you do not have a big back yard and space for a big vegetable garden you can still grow vegetables such as tomatoes. Tomatoes are a great first vegetable to try in a container garden. Container gardens can be cultivated on balconies, patios, outdoor window sills, along the driveway or even on a roof top. There are a few essential tips to container gardening that you should keep in mind.

First of all, when starting your container garden, whether it is from seed or from a young plant from your local garden center, the soil is essential. Many plants are very sensitive to the soil they are planted in. Unlike weeds, fruit and vegetable bearing plants do not grow everywhere and even if they grow on some minor soils, they might not bring they crop they would on a good soil. So get your pots clean and ready with a good soil recommended for gardening. Also keep in mind, that the container needs to be at least 5 gallons or more to properly support the growth of the plant.

Your second important choice is the plant itself. Tomatoes come in a great variety of sizes, colors and tastes. From cherry and olive tomatoes over plum tomatoes to big size sandwich tomatoes (such as fat boy), it is all available. Besides the size and taste of the tomato the size of the plant falls within this size. Some tomato plant get to a full grown height of only a few feet while others might grow up to 5 feet tall. If your space or height is limited where you are planning to cultivate your container garden, make sure that you pick one of the smaller varieties. A friendly employee at your local garden center should be able to direct you to a good variety such as the bushy types for container gardening.

Even in a container garden it is important to support tomatoes properly. The tomato fruit actually is very heavy for the weak branches of the plant; therefore it is necessary to attach the tomato plant to some kind of a support such as planting stakes, tomatoes cages or small trellises.

Tomatoes generally need 5-6 hours minimum of sun so pick your spot for the container garden appropriately. Do not pick the shade side of the house, too little sun will not ripen your tomatoes in time and also minimizes the chance of a good crop. The more sun the better will your tomato plants grow and most likely the more tomatoes you will harvest.

Tomatoes need to be watered on a daily bases in hot or dry climates. Generally it is better for tomatoes if they are not watered from above, but rather from below. This should be easier achievable in a container garden, since you will generally water fewer plants than in a big backyard vegetable garden. Also keep in mind containers, planting pots and hanging baskets dry out much faster than regular soil in a big garden.

Very important for container gardens besides the regular watering is fertilizing. Container gardens have a small amount of soil compared to the big surrounding of a vegetable garden in the back yard and therefore the amount of food for the plants contained within the container is much smaller. Regular fertilizing is necessary to provide the tomato plant with the essential nutrients to support a big crop and grow properly.

Tomato container gardening is a very possible undertaking for many different occasions. Tomatoes are such a versatile ingredient and can be used in salads, as snack, in soups, salsas, chili’s and much more.